Ere the End
by C.Rara
Summary: Before we all die there will be a moment. A moment when we are forced to acknowledge all of our sins for which we are about to be judged. Then the fear takes us.


**Ere the end**

It had been an accident. An ill-advised game of gambling that had gone overly awry, resulting in a tragedy. People could not be blamed for their sins if they were little more than mistakes, could they? To be a man was to fight for what he, in his erring human mind, though to be right.

The widow would not listen.

"Who are you?" she croaked, through the thick flow of devastated tears. Her face was lined. She was old, well past her fourth decade. She must have had over 20 years living in joy with this man. More than most by sure. Happiness ends for everyone. She at least had been blessed with enough to time to savour it.

"What does it matter?" the knight muttered tiredly. "Say good-bye to your husband. Go home to your sons and tell them to avenge him. Then drink to your family's health and curse me by the fire. What does it matter who I am? You know what I've done. That's enough."

The woman hiccupped through another but when she raised her face to look up at his, the knight's eyes were not met with sadness or bitterness but anger unparalleled to anything he'd been witness to before.

"I have no sons. I have one young daughter. Ha! Shall I ask her to avenge him? Shall she crawl on her hands and knees to bawl at the man who slaughtered her father? All the others would have been boys. All dead before they left the cradle."

The knight's expression didn't change. She didn't want pity. He didn't want to give it to her. Sometimes people died.

"No sympathy?" The woman laughed bitterly. Laughter. It echoed in the knight's mind. Laugher. That one might laugh during such a time showed either courage, or insanity.  
Or despair so sincere that no amount of crying was ever going to help. The dizzying descent into a black pit of total hopelessness, which no lamentations, no matter how loud they were screamed, could ever give freedom, so to laugh was the involuntary action.

"I wouldn't expect it from the likes of you, _knight._" The disdain dripped off her tongue. "You've killed too many sons, haven't you?"

The knight shrugged.

"You are not a mute." The woman hissed "I heard you speak. Or have you already forgotten your pretty speech like you have forgotten by husband. 'Curse you by the fire', sir, I intend to! 'What does it matter who you are'? '_What does it matter?'_ I wish to know! It matters for no more reason than that I want to know the name of the wretched man who took my love away from me. So tell me, knight, who are you? WHO ARE YOU?"

The name slipped from his mouth before his brain could advise him against the foolish action.

"Tristan."

The woman was startled. Clearly she had not anticipated receiving an answer so easily.

"Tristan." The woman repeated suppressing a shudder, bile rising in her throat.

"You killed my husband, Tristan."

"Yes."

"You drew out a knife and you plunged it through his heart without hesitation."

"Y-"

"Yet you are totally and obviously without remorse."

"Y-"

"These weren't questions, knight. They require no answer."

"And my actions require no remorse."

The widow's derisive outburst of laughter echoed around the empty alley, but as it reverberated off at the dismal, dark walls back to Tristan's ears, it sounded more akin to a wounded animal's cry of pain.

"You truly think so, _Sarmation dog_?" She whispered quietly, with burning venom coating every word.

"Everybody dies." Tristan answered, without even a trace of unease. "So many more people are dead than alive."

"And so many more people that are alive wish they could join them. But it is never they who die. It is a good man who will pay for wicked men's bad actions!"

"You think I am a wicked man?" Tristan asked carefully, his own eyes now boring into the widows. "You judge solely on a person's bad actions, then? Your husband was a gambler and a cheat."

The woman gasped and fell back against the wall. Tristan, as much as it went against the character of his title as knight, made no move to catch her. Had she not gained balance herself, she would have fallen to the floor, undignified, at her late husband's murderer's feet.

This thought must have struck her as it did Tristan, because she stood up proudly once again and the vein began throbbing madly in her aged forehead.

"And God will judge him for his crimes, little though they were." She announced in a quivering voice "But you, knight, are a murderer." Her voice hardened. "A killer. Aye, this was a drunken fight. But you fight, sir. For a living, you take life."

"I am forced to." Tristan replied instantly.

The woman laughed again and Tristan fought the urge to cringe. Laughter was too hard to hear.

"Forced, I see! How tragic, how noble. If only you were in control of your own mind, your own body. If only you had the blessing to think for oneself and choose; as can a whore, or a child, or even an insect crawling helplessly on the dirt! I see now you are a puppet in a macabre show. I say, would only that the Roman puppeteer cut your strings and make you fall!"

Tristan took a step back. The woman was raving, her rant didn't cease as she continued her verbal attack.

He used this time to study her. The tears in her eyes made them glisten and appear vibrant. Almost young. When she got angry, there was that spark of life in them.

The lines and flush of incensement marred an otherwise handsome face, but definitely never pretty. Her shoulders were huddled over and her hands rough from much work. She was not a wealthy woman, which surprised him, as she carried herself and spoke in such a way that suggested aristocracy. The man had too.

Tristan supposed they had been moderately affluent and married well within both their own ranks, and lost it. No doubt to his gambling. A pity. So much was pitiful about this woman. Her sorrow was hard to witness, let alone be blamed for.

"Whether you care to acknowledge it or not, lady." Tristan began, not caring if he was cutting her off. "I AM obligated to kill. It is not by preference."

The woman opened her mouth again and in one stride Tristan was almost pressed up against her, clasping one hand over her mouth.

"No more laughing, loon." He hissed into her neck. For the first time, she looked frightened. Fear was creeping up into her eyes, replacing the anger.

Slowly he took the hand away and stepped back, her many laughing fits swirling about in his mind.

"You say those words with force." The woman said steadily, taking a deep breath before continuing. "You repeat them as if they are always in your mind. As if they have become a mantra. As if they are well-rehearsed _lies._" She snapped.

"Are you a religious man, Tristan?"

The question threw him.  
"No."

She smiled humourlessly.  
"No." She repeated in a mocking tone. "No, I didn't think so. You do not believe in God then?"

"I do not know. I live in this world. If He exists, He is in the next."

"So you think there is a possibility of an afterlife?" The woman pressed on.

Tristan found himself uncomfortable, sinking into a subject of the supernatural which he was not happy to be drowning in.

"I do not know what is out there and I do not worry about it."

The widow moved in closer to Tristan and stared up at him with furious hatred.

"Not yet, knight. But there will be a last battle that you do not win. No man can beat time itself. And you will lie there, waiting to die." Contrary to her expression, she said it so casually and calmly. "And the panic will suddenly hit you. Consume you. Devour you like a disease, ravishing your mind. In that single moment of terror, will be the dreaded question..."

Tristan almost leant in to hear her.

"_What if?_ Because maybe there is no God. But for the single moment which will last forever, there will be that doubt. And all your bravery will trivial. All your good accomplishments will fade into ash and the roaring fire of all your sins will play before you. How many people have you killed, Tristan? How many? Can't remember? In this moment, you will remember them all. See them. They'll haunt you. They'll be waiting for you. Waiting to drag you down into this 'what if' afterlife and make you pay. Make you suffer."

Tristan's brain seemed to be spinning within his head, though the only outward sign he showed was the occasional odd movement of his eye as he resisted the girly urge to faint.

"And you'll weep, Tristan. You'll cry right before you die. No matter how heroic, you'll be sobbing like a newborn because of the things you've done. And everyone around you will know that this man- This man in the bed with the sickness, or on the ground with the wound- is dying a thousand deaths. They'll know that he's facing this moment, that one fleeting second which will never end, where he will have to face the justice."

"Tristan. They'll see the brave man cry, and know –KNOW- that you think you are about to be punished. They will know that you think you _deserve_ to be punished. They will wonder what cruel, evil, heinous acts you've committed and forever associate you as being what you are. A murderer. And you will not be able to stop them. Do you know why? Because in your very last moments on this earth, the very last thought you'll ever have. You'll think it's true. You'll believe it too. Whatever family you have. Whatever lives you've saved. Whatever happiness you have. They'll all mean nothing to you. The fear will remove them all from your sentience. You will be left with nothing but the terror of knowing that you can't know what is it to come."

The widow heaved a huge gulp of air, shuddering uncontrollably.

"Ere the end of your life, Tristan. Noble knight. You will have known what it is like to feel real fear, and you will have real cause for it, and no way to overcome it as it paralyses you in it's cold icy death. Ere the end, Tristan, no matter how you wish to be the hero, you will have died a coward's death."

The woman really did fall to the floor this time, evidently having used up all her energy to get the words out.

"I hate you." She sobbed into the floor. "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you."

Tristan, who's hands were uncharacteristically shaking, lifted her up slowly.

The apologies he wanted to, meant to, give wouldn't fall out of his mouth no matter how hard he tried to push them. He tried to place sorrow and guilt in his eyes but he could feel, and could tell from the widows face, that he hadn't manage to muster any expression at all.

He drew a bag of gold from his belt. He had only come to find the widow to give her this.

"It is customary to pay reparation." Tristan said softly, handing the woman the money. She took it, but even the action was scathing. 'Oh yes, this makes _everything_ better.'

Tristan drew out another bag, smaller this time. His winnings from the fateful match.

"For your girl."

"Isolde." The woman told him, in a scratchy voice.

"For Isolde." Tristan nodded.

Her name on his mouth seemed to pain her.  
"She will grow up to hate you." The widow warned. "She will grow up to hate everything about you."

Tristan said nothing.

-x-

**author's note: **I'm really not happy with this, its only a first draft, but its been plaguing me. I HAD TO WRITE SOMETHING DOWN. it's my first king arthur fanfic and i promise my next ones will be better. But i spent, um, ok, i admit, about an hour and a half on it. Thats all. I know! Its shocking. But I didn't think it was terrible, just not brilliant. So i'll put it up so you lovely lot can tell me how to improve it please (yep. thats the bit where you go ahead and click review :) you know you want to!) and i'll edit it ASAP.

I know this doesn't fit the Isolde/Tristan story, but very little holds true to the myths in the film, so excuse me. I think, when I finally get around to writing it (understand this one MUST be perfect or ill drive myself mad) you'll find it an enjoyable read.

Cara xxx


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